Skin of Ice, Bones of Jade
by blacktop
Summary: John Reese isn't really into poetry, but a dangerous international case throws him into close quarters with Carter's best friend, the poet Daro. Hiding from unknown assailants, the two share important lessons about friendship and love.


**Skin of Ice, Bones of Jade**

He remembered.

_No perfume._

_Just her, unembellished._

_Cops didn't get to wear perfume._

_The black fall of hair, the big eyes set in a moon-shaped face. Skin smooth like ice on a January lake._

_She gave him her name, Carter. Her real name._

_He had no name to give her back._

_Shame rolled over him. She could smell his rot – reeking boots, mildewed flannels, piss-rank overcoat, his breath. _

_She could see him – his hair, his gray beard, his fingernails lined with grime._

_He searched her face for a disdainful lip, a blink of pity. None._

_She slid the plastic cup of ice water toward him._

"Do you know any poetry, Mr. Reese?"

Finch's voice, though soft, startled him from his early morning reverie. The resultant jerk knocked a book from the library shelf and loosed a tiny cloud of dust into the gloomy enclave.

Reese retrieved the volume from the floor, replaced it among its mates, and looked around at his friend who was pecking energetically at the computer key board.

He straightened his shoulders and responded immediately to the challenge:

"_She walks in beauty, like the night_

"_Of cloudless climes and starry skies;_

"_And all that's best of dark and bright_

"_Meet in her aspect and her eyes"_

The older man looked up with raised brows.

"I didn't take you for an admirer of Lord Byron, Mr. Reese. I'm impressed."

"Mrs. Keller's sophomore English class. Had to memorize a poem every month. Toughest work I ever did, except for Special Forces training.

"Why do you ask?"

Rotating in his chair, Finch plucked a photo from the printer and walked to the glass board to tape it at eye level.

"We have a new number, a poet as it turns out. It appears that someone wants to eliminate her. I'm not familiar with her work, but murder hardly seems the acceptable response to bad verse.

"I guess everyone's a critic these days."

"But that's Daro!" Reese blurted out. He moved closer to the glass and touched the portrait with his index finger.

"From your outburst, you obviously know the young woman. I will never get your depths, Mr. Reese.

"Please explain your connection to our literary client."

"She's a friend of Carter's. I only met her twice, once long-distance across a crowded restaurant. The second time was last month when Carter and I had coffee with her at a museum.

"What's the threat to her?"

"I don't know precisely yet. But here is the background information I have been able to compile so far."

Finch returned to the computer and recited a detailed resume of their new number while scrolling through multiple screens of data.

Dorothy Darrell Gale had published poetry and essays under the penname "Daro" for twenty years. Her work, mostly short free-form verse, was admired for its elegant but accessible language and its effortless blending of the political and the pornographic.

Much of Daro's poetry was deemed funny and all of it managed to outrage some segment of the reading public. Five years ago, _The New Yorker_ magazine had published a lengthy biographical profile of her, entitled "The Voice of a Generation," and the appellation stuck. Her books were all best-sellers, confounding the publishing industry which had considered poetry a non-starter in commercial terms.

Daro lived in Brooklyn with her long-time partner Barbara Flavio, a book store owner. The couple had two teen age boys who attended an aggressively free-thinking private school a few blocks from their home.

The pair had married the previous year after the laws changed in New York State. Their elaborate formal ceremony was featured in a star-struck piece of fluff on the front page of the New York Times Sunday Style section under the headline, "Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves: The Wedding of the New Century."

Stunning photographs of the event showed the two women in white tuxedos crowned with matching white silk top hats. Barbara wore a waist-length veil trailing down from under her hat, while Daro carried a simple bouquet of gleaming white roses and lilies-of-the-valley in her white-gloved hands.

Reese used Finch's gigantic magnifying glass to study printouts of the photos accompanying this ridiculously swooning article.

He thought he spotted Joss' face in one of the shots of the lavish gathering. He wanted to know what she wore to such an unusual occasion, but he couldn't make it out despite several minutes of careful examination.

As Reese and Finch silently worked through two of their number's recent poems, Reese crouched low over his friend's shoulder to make out the jumble of phrases on the shimmering screen.

When he finished, Reese shrugged in bewilderment. He stood back from the computer and loosed a small sigh.

"The words are about sex, I get that. But it beats me what else she's trying to say."

"I'm as befuddled as you are, Mr. Reese. Contemporary poetry is not my area of expertise."

Finch pursed his mouth and shook his head.

"However, you will have a chance to seek some clarity on the matter this evening at eight. Ms. Gale is giving a reading from her latest book at the offices of her publisher, Brigand and Clarke. They are located on the sixth floor of an old converted factory building in the East Village. The gathering will be small, but the event is open to the public, so I trust you will not have any difficulty gaining admission."

"I don't get the point, Finch. What am I going to find out by listening to Daro spout some of her poems? Who do you figure would want to eliminate her, anyway?"

"I can't answer that. But as you know, our source is never wrong and its information is often of an urgent nature. The threat to Ms. Gale is certain and it is imminent. You need to be in place tonight to learn as much as you can before something dire happens to her."

After a few more minutes of planning the two men parted, Reese to retrieve his overcoat from the flat at Pooja's, Finch to excavate in his favorite bookstore for volumes of Daro's earlier work.

XXXPOIXXXPOIXXXPOIXXX

Based on his interpretation of her writings, Reese had expected to feel out of place at Daro's poetry reading.

He figured that the crowd would be made up of curly-haired tawny women dressed in the flowing patterns and clashing colors of urban bohemia and pale men with hair past their collars and multiple bracelets on their wrists.

He was right for the most part.

Before the reading began, he sliced through the buzzing throng, noting anything out of the ordinary. The women who made up the majority of the crowd were excited, chattering loudly with self-congratulatory cheer. Most of the hungry-eyed men in skinny ties and mufflers were brooding and on the prowl.

The few exceptions of either gender were easy to mark as outsiders in this glittering clique.

He saw a few women dressed in stiff pant suits like Joss wore and Reese assumed they had money to burn and limited options. Their itch for a less conventional life had drawn them to this poetry reading, he figured.

Along the periphery of the room lounged a handful of men with hair clipped as short as his. These outliers wore tight muscle shirts under their blazers. They were suspicious, in his view, and he stationed himself at the back to keep an eye on these men in particular.

When Daro stepped onto the low platform at the front of the room, the crowd hushed as if a switch had been thrown.

She was accompanied to the stage by a nervous young woman who represented the publishing house hosting the event. While the pony-tailed girl stuttered through a worshipful introduction, Reese studied Joss's friend for the third time.

Daro was, as he had remembered her, strikingly beautiful. Her bronze skin and golden braids knotted high on her head sent such a glow washing over her that it seemed as though she walked in a permanent spotlight.

Reese had known many women, but few he would call bewitching. Daro definitely fit his definition of such a rare creature.

Unsettled, he was both hopeful and afraid that she would notice him standing at the back of the room.

She was dressed simply in denim, which he thought was surprisingly informal for the occasion. The faded blue pants were tight at her tiny waist and slender hips, but flared dramatically down to the floor, obscuring all but the pointed toes of her brown boots and the spikes of her heels.

The shirt was in a deeper shade of the rustic fabric, long sleeved but hardly demure since she wore it unbuttoned to the navel.

Many long thin gold chains sparkled down her bare torso and a small ivory pendant carved in the form of the Chinese character "Double Happiness" hung at her diaphragm.

Her breasts were modest, but good. Marie Antoinette in a Champagne cup good.

Reese liked the clear, rich melody of Daro's voice. He smiled along with the audience when she read passages of erotic experimentation that mocked those human impulses even while celebrating them.

She was militantly funny when she wanted to be and sweepingly passionate too. Her poems worked much better when she read them out loud, Reese concluded.

The crowd seemed transfixed by Daro's performance and disappointed when after ninety minutes she announced that she was only going to read one last verse.

"As you may know, I've had my differences with the U.S. government from time to time over the past few decades."

Several people chuckled as if they knew what she was speaking about.

"But I have to give the feds props now. They had the guts to invite me on one of those government sponsored official tours to China last month. Yes, can you believe it? Little Daro from Trenton all the way over in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Beijing! And they never once tried to censor my recitals.

"I read all the sickest, most tragic, most profane of my poems out loud and in public and no one said boo!"

Applause greeted this demonstration of official U.S. open-mindedness.

"But I wasn't just reading my own shit, you know. I was picking up stuff too. Learning from the school kids and teachers and artists and students that I met on my trip."

"So get your minds around this, people: I started reading lots of poetry from those ancient dudes from all those old dynasties over there."

Daro opened her eyes wide at the admission, as if she couldn't believe the intellectual transformation herself.

"Those old Chinese poets, some of them were stone-cold freaks. With tight verses that rip right through your guts. Their physical descriptions are better than anything I've read. Ever. Tear your heart out with a simple phrase, make your eyes burn with a single word. Reading that shit makes me want to just rip up all my mess and start over."

The crowd wasn't having it. They protested this self-criticism with a loud chorus of negatives.

Daro continued over their objections.

"No, no, listen to me, I'm right on this!

"So, to end this evening, I want to read from a poem by Su Dong-Po, a major poet of the Song Dynasty.

"This cat started writing as a child and became famous for his beautiful verses. They gave him a job in the government because of how good his poetry was, go figure! But because of some of the things he wrote, he got demoted and arrested and exiled by political rivals many times in his career.

"So listen up. Here is a poem I like from Su Dong-Po, straight from the tenth fucking century A.D."

She opened a slender book bound in red cloth and ran her fingers down the page she had selected.

Her voice, still and cool like a lake, rang out across the room:

"_Skin of ice bones of jade_

"_By nature clear free of sweat_

"_The wind enters Water Pavilion deep fragrance overflows_

"_Embroidered curtains part_

"_A big bright moon peeks in_

"_She is still not sleeping_

"_Reclining on the pillow gold pins loose her hair down"  
_

Daro paused to let the lush images flow in silence over her rapt audience. She extended her hand, palm up.

"_You rise I take your white hand_

"_Not a sound within the court_

"_Now and then a star crosses the Celestial River_

"_You ask how is the night?_

"_The night is already past three_

"_Moonlight grows faint _

"_The stars Jade and String have drooped_

"_Only bending the fingers_

"_I count when the West Wind shall come_

"_Yet who would know_

"_The flowing years pass by stealth"  
_

Daro smiled down at her followers, raked a long finger from one side of the crowd to the other in an imperious gesture and then released them from her thrall.

As the conference room emptied, Reese anxiously scanned the gaggle of admirers who gathered around Daro seeking an autograph or a photo souvenir.

No one seemed threatening, but he had to remain vigilant.

As he waited at the back of the room, he thought Daro nodded once to acknowledge his presence, but he couldn't be sure.

Leaning against the frame of the door separating the office suite from the corridor, he tapped his ear piece.

He knew that Finch had been listening in to the poetry recital. He wanted to let his boss know that all was proceeding safely so far.

Suddenly, Daro was in front of him. In her five inch heels she could look him straight in the eye.

"John." Her amused gaze penetrated him, assessing him without mercy.

"Daro." He couldn't think of anything else to say, any explanation that would cover his presence here.

"I didn't figure you for a lover of the arts, John. In fact, I thought you looked awful bored when we met in that museum last month. But wonders never cease, I guess."

He had to come up with something.

"Joss mentioned that you were reading your poetry tonight. At the last minute she couldn't make it, but I decided to come anyway."

This sounded almost plausible to his ears.

"Sure, why the hell not. Thanks for stopping by. So, what did you think?" She wasn't going to let him off the hook.

He decided minimal honesty was the safest policy.

"I understand your poems a lot better, now that I've heard you read them out loud. You have a beautiful voice."

She nodded in acceptance of the scant compliment.

He helped her shrug into a heavy black fur coat, some kind of sheared mink, he thought. They moved together to the elevator bank, her giant black leather tote bag banging against his thigh as they walked.

The hall was empty and everyone else, including the skittish girl from the publishing house, had disappeared.

The two men jumped into the elevator with them just as the doors slid shut.

Reese tensed and pushed Daro against the wall, which prompted a whine from her, but only silence from their fellow passengers.

He recognized them, one long-haired, one buzz cut, from the crowd at the poetry reading.

The scent of their cheap cologne filled the narrow space, reminding Reese of a long ago assignment in Saint Petersburg; he assumed these were Russian thugs straight off the boat.

As the lift cranked slowly toward the ground floor, he knew they were assessing him: his strength, his chivalry, his recklessness in a two-against-one fight.

He also knew that whatever their calculations might be, they were wrong.

They made their move as the elevator passed the third floor. Buzz-cut stepped behind Daro, throwing his long arm around her torso. He slipped a beefy hand inside her shirt and drew her close to his body.

Long-hair leaned against Reese, but made the mistake of pulling out a knife to show he meant business.

In a single flowing gesture, Reese turned at a right angle to the closest assailant and jammed an elbow upward and into the man's left eye socket, driving his head hard against the elevator wall.

As the man sank to the floor, Reese noted that the impact had left a sizeable dent.

With the knife in hand, Reese had barely time to turn around when Daro shrieked and plunged her spike heel into Buzz-cut's instep.

He let her loose, bellowing in surprise.

Two chopping blows to the throat from Reese put an end to the yelling.

The elevator door opened and Reese pushed Daro through it toward the lobby exit. The two unconscious men remained sprawled like marionettes inside the lift. Blood dribbled from Long-hair's damaged eye, but the other man was unscathed.

That wasn't good enough. So Reese buried the knife in Buzz-cut's thigh up to the hilt.

"That will give them something to think about when they wake up."

Propping open the elevator door with his back, he snapped mug shots of the two assailants and forwarded the photos to Finch for investigation.

Then with his hand firmly under her elbow, Reese hustled Daro away from the old factory.

He called Finch as they rounded the corner and told his partner to pick them up at an intersection five blocks away.

They stumbled on for another few minutes, Reese grimly silent, Daro cursing as she tripped over the uneven pavement.

Abruptly, he backed her against a knee-high retaining wall guarding a row of leaf-less miniature trees. He pushed her down onto the low embankment.

With a soft curse he seized her ankle and ripped the five-inch heel from her right boot and then from the left.

"These boots cost almost two thousand dollars, you motherfucker!"

"Don't care. Now get up and move."

He jerked on her hand to bring her upright.

"Those punks could have more friends in the neighborhood."

He stared across the street into a brightly lit coffee shop as they walked on.

"And button your goddamn shirt."

She did, her hands shaking with tension or cold.

When they reached the designated meeting spot, Finch wasn't there. John swore again and pulled Daro with him into the inky shadows thrown by the marquee of a shuttered movie house.

Clutching the collar of her fur coat to her throat, she puffed out a sardonic inquiry.

"Who the fuck are you, John? You're not in finance, are you?"

"More like securities and risk management, I guess."

"Does Joss know who you are? Does she know what you do?"

"Yes."

"And she's O.K. with it? I mean, Jesus! You seriously fucked up those dudes back there! You looked like some kind of crazy ninja in that elevator."

He bristled.

"You complaining?"

"No. Just wondering how in hell you and Joss get along for real."

He pinned her with a stare.

"I help people; she helps people. We get along just fine."

Before Daro could raise more objections, Finch crept into view, driving a battered gray Volvo sedan with a deep scratch along the passenger side.

Reese jerked open the back door, pushed her onto the bench, threw the tote bag on top of her and slammed the door shut. He joined Finch in the front seat and they pulled away from the curb.

After telling Daro to lie flat, Reese remained quiet as the car darted through midnight traffic to a destination across town.

Finch made up for his partner's silence with a voluble flow of information and data.

The forwarded mug shots of the two hit men confirmed Reese's suspicions: they were indeed Russians newly landed in New York, working on their share of the American dream by free-lancing for high-paying clients.

Finch didn't know yet who had hired them.

He was convinced that Daro herself held the key to understanding the mystery; that something she had seen or done, something she knew or possessed had prompted the kidnapping attempt.

"When we get to the safe house, you are going to have to question her closely, Mr. Reese. These people are desperate and determined. They will keep on trying to get her until we uncover exactly what it is that they want."

Reese grunted his agreement and Daro whimpered from the back seat.

XXXPOIXXXPOIXXXPOIXXX

Their second hour in the basement apartment was no more enjoyable than the first.

"Your bug-eyed little friend called this a safe house, but it looks like a cold-water dump to me."

Daro's initial fear had given way to disgruntlement and then anger at her predicament.

Reese secretly agreed with her that this place hardly met Finch's usual sumptuous standards and he wondered how much rent his friend was paying to keep the apartment.

The cramped front room featured only a short dingy sofa and two wooden folding chairs. Its cave-like gloom was deepened by the purple paint on all four walls and the iron grate over the front window which looked up to the crumbling edge of the sidewalk above.

Past the minimal kitchen, where a card table stood folded against the wall, were two dismal bedrooms, enveloped in disturbing shades of mahogany red and navy.

In contrast, the sole bathroom was an island of cheer, with its garish orange and green décor, though the black and white tiled floor was certainly a nod to gracious tradition.

At least the bedrooms had actual beds in them, queen-size. And dressers, three drawers empty. And the electricity worked, although Reese insisted they keep the front rooms dark to avoid arousing the neighborhood.

He allowed her to turn on a single lamp which crouched on the floor of the navy bedroom casting a feeble cone of light into the gloom.

She sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed, her mink draped over her shoulders; he brought in one of the folding chairs to perch opposite her.

"I still don't see why I can't call Barb. Just to let her know I'm O.K. and not lying in a pool of blood in some back alley somewhere."

"Your phone may be tapped and your house under surveillance. If you contact her, whoever is out to get you may make a move on your family instead."

His patience was wearing thin, having given the exact same explanation two times before.

"Then if I can't go home and I can't call home, why can't I stay with Joss until this blows over?"

"If these people are as smart as we think they are, they already know who your friends are. They will stake out Joss's place as soon as word goes back that you escaped their hired goons. If you go there you will put her in danger.

"And I'm not letting that happen."

She didn't cower under his glare, instead throwing back one of her own.

"You don't have to use your speaking-to-a-moron tone of voice with me, John."

The two sat in tense silence for several more minutes.

Reese suddenly stood from the chair and pulled his cell phone from a jacket pocket. He threw the device on the bed where it landed next to her knee.

"Use this. Call your wife. Tell her nothing except you are safe and uninjured. You understand? Nothing more."

Daro grabbed the phone and with shaking hands made the call, following his instructions with precision. Though tears ran down her cheeks as she spoke, she kept her voice even and bright.

Reese focused his eyes on the far corner of the room during this exchange to give her the tiniest portion of privacy, but he admired her restrained performance.

She could ditch the theatrics when necessary, it seemed.

When she finished the brief conversation, she slowly rose from the bed and crossed the room to hand back the phone.

"Thanks for that."

"You're welcome."

"What about Joss? Won't she wonder where you are? If you're safe?"

"Harold will get in touch with her. She doesn't have to worry about me."

But he did want to contact Joss.

He did want to let her know there was nothing to fret about. He wanted to hear her voice, to get reassurance from her as much as give it. But he knew that wasn't possible this night, maybe not for a while.

Sitting again on the edge of the bed, Daro rummaged in her giant tote bag; the scrabbling sounds of her fingernails grated on Reese's ears.

She extracted a large zip-lock plastic bag and carried its clinking contents to the dresser. There she methodically arranged a set of little bottles of clear liquor into a single row along the edge.

She had twelve bottles in her collection, equally divided between vodka and gin.

"If you want to share, tell me now, so I can parcel out the supply. Otherwise, I'm going to stick with my usual. That little dust-up in the elevator threw me off schedule."

No apology in her tone, he noted, just fact.

She left the room for the kitchen, so he raised his voice in reply.

"Thanks, I'm good. Your monkey, your back."

The cubes clinking against glass signaled mission accomplished before she re-entered the bedroom.

"At least your little friend knows how to stock the essentials. Enough ice in the freezer for a big-ass old block party."

Reese watched in silence as she poured two portions of gin into the highball glass and gulped half down in a single swallow.

The rest she sipped with slow delicacy, huddled again under her fur on the bed.

When she was done, she stretched out flat on the bed and closed her eyes, apparently drifting off to sleep soon after.

He needed to keep alert, talk with Finch again, watch the street for disturbances. The living room was better for these purposes so he left Daro to her rest.

After the inconclusive call to Finch, he placed the phone on the floor and stretched his legs over an arm of the sofa. His head was angled on the other arm at an awkward incline, but at least he could see directly up to the moonlit street above the apartment.

He didn't fall asleep exactly, but he lost track of the time, noting only that the drifting clouds cast the room in pools of darkness and light that alternated as the minutes passed.

_The plastic cup was ribbed around the middle, useless for her purpose. _

_So he carefully placed the pads of his fingers against its smooth upper shoulders. _

_The ice water was good._

_He wasn't thirsty, but it felt clean and cool in his mouth. _

_He kept his eyes on her face, making sure that she saw him. _

_He wanted his face to be still; no leering. She must get that fifty times a day from careless men. _

_He wanted her to see him differently; to know him, even without a name._

_He wanted her to have these imprints of his real self._

Suddenly, for the second time in six hours, Daro was in front of him without warning. She moved more stealthily than he would have credited.

"I'm cold." She grasped his hand in hers and he started at the icy touch.

"If I'm going to be stuck in this dungeon with the most beautiful man in New York City, I might as well get some kind of benefit out of it."

She tugged on his hand and he followed her back to the navy bedroom.

He knew this wasn't a seduction; she wasn't interested and he was committed.

But for this night, in this strange hour, they could be warmed by a grudging kind of comfort.

Reese lay down beside her on the bed and let her throw the fur over their bodies. Shoulder to shoulder they stared up at the cracks webbing the stained ceiling.

Her feet, still in the damaged boots, stuck out beyond the hem of the coat.

"I'm sorry for ruining your boots. I'll replace them."

"Oh, fuck that. Necessary sacrifice, circle of life. Those boots had to die so that I could live."

"Do you always sleep with your shoes on?"

"In fact, you know, I used to. Every night until just past my eighteenth birthday."

"Why?"

"When you live in foster care, you learn early you can't trust nobody. Not diddling daddies, not theivin' mommas. Nobody. If you value anything, you sleep with one eye open and two shoes on your feet.

"I didn't start sleeping bare foot until I was in a freshman dorm at Rutgers."

Silence washed over them.

Something pulled the next memory out of him like a ribbon slipping from a birthday present.

"Summer when I was twelve, I kept my shoes on day and night too."

"Why? You in the system too?"

"No. Raccoons. In my dad's cabin in a stretch of woods about 30 miles outside of town. My mom sent me off to stay with him when she couldn't stand me anymore. I just got on her nerves, I guess."

"Aw, nah, John. I figured you for the good boy type: hair slicked down, shirt tucked in, pencil always sharp.

"The kind I useta beat up after school."

The chuckle rose from deep in his belly.

"Maybe I was a little like that. But mostly I guess I was trouble at home. By the end of the school year, she said she was at the end of her rope. So she dug up my dad and made him take me for the summer. His cabin was next to a narrow lake. We fished every day and hunted a little; he taught me how to whittle some on the days it rained.

"In the evenings his buddies would stop over to our cabin and shoot the breeze some. I liked sitting in the dark on the front step, hearing the stories, especially the ones Old Henry would spin. My dad was a real talker too, a charmer. But when Old Henry started in no one could beat him. Real back woods tall tales about giant Indians and woolly fishes and flying mountain lions and such."

The chuckle blossomed into a laugh. Daro laughed too.

"Some time when we get outta here, you have to tell me those stories, John. I could make some good poetry out of shit like that."

"I bet you could too. Those stories were something else. When Henry got good and wound up, Old Pard would break out a bottle of bourbon and the three of them would pass it around, sipping it so it lasted all night. I'd get a tin mug and they'd let me taste some. No more than two, three fingers each evening."

He held up his right hand with two fingers pointing to the ceiling.

"My dad made me swear never to tell my mother. And I kept that secret, just like I promised.

"I figured it all balanced out: I didn't tell her about the drinking and I didn't tell him about the other men."

Under the fur coat, Daro reached for his hand and squeezed it.

"At the end of August I begged him to let me stay with him."

Without thinking about it, he slipped into that adored voice and made the scene live again:

""I know you tried hard, Johnny. You tried real hard. We had a good time this summer, didn't we? But it just isn't going to work out. I need you to stay with her.'

"So I went back. Best summer of my life."

"You ever hear from him?"

"No."

That seemed too abrupt or too pathetic, so he continued in a softer tone.

"Once when I was home on leave, I pulled into a truck stop looking for a breakfast of black coffee. This old geezer in a flannel shirt behind the cash register started yelling at me: 'If you ain't Patrick's son, I'ma go out back and shoot maself!'

"I told him no need for that. I was Patrick's son.

"He said, 'I knowd it; I'd know those gol-blasted eyes anywhere. When you see him, you tell him Matthew Tuck ain't forgot that fifteen dollars he lent me. I'm back on my feet now, so he can come round and collect it anytime he's in town.'"

The brief sigh escaped him without warning.

"That's the last I heard of him."

He felt her thumb tracing over the tendons of his left hand, pressing slightly against each knuckle.

They lay like that for some moments, watching the circle of lamp light shimmering on the ceiling.

He felt wrung out and didn't have any more words. If there was going to be more talk, she would have to do it.

Daro never ran out of words, it seemed, and so after maybe six or seven minutes of silence, she spoke.

"You know, Joss told me once she wished she had met you five years ago."

Was this a change of topic or not? He wasn't sure, but he felt relieved to hear her voice again.

She didn't seem to need a reply, so he held still.

"I asked her why five? Why not wish for ten years ago? Or fifteen? She said she could only wish in small batches – five years back, five years ahead. That was all she could see, all she could deal with. She said any longer in either direction just made her cry."

He turned on his side to look at Daro's perfect profile, outlined in the amber haze of the moonlight mixed with the lamp light.

"She said five years was a good amount of time. If she got that, then she would wish for five years more with you and then another five after that."

He rolled onto his back again. The tears dripped down his temples. Just a few and he didn't think she could see them.

She turned her head toward him. Her breath smelled like juniper and it cooled the hot tears as she spoke against his ear.

"Give her those five years, John. If you can do it. Give her the five and the next five after that."

He wanted to make the promise, but he wouldn't lie.

So they just lay quietly under the heavy fur coat until first she fell asleep and then he followed.

XXXPOIXXXPOIXXXPOIXXX

He woke with a start.

It was still dark outside but the moon had set and an implication of aqua tinted the room.

Daro was gone from the bed and he felt cold even with the coat pressing down on him.

He could hear her voice coming from the front room. She was speaking in a plummy tone ripe with a theatrical British accent.

"No, I am so sorry. As I said, Mr. Reese cannot come to the phone right now. He is unavailable to take your call. If you would like to leave a message I would be pleased to pass it to him when he returns to the office."

A pause. The cool Miss Moneypenny disappeared.

"Look, Harold, I don't give a fuck who you are. You could be the next future ex-Mr. Kim Kardashian for all I give a crap."

Reese hesitated at the bedroom door, cracking it just a bit to hear better.

"Sure go ahead. If you have any questions, ask me directly. The two of you treat me like I'm a moron. I don't know how you get any work done treating people like that."

She listened for a few minutes to an explanation that seemed lengthy, but left her skeptical.

"So you spent all night scanning some weird ass Chinese web sites and shit? And you followed a bunch of chat rooms where Chinese dissidents in New York were squawking about some valuable pick-up they are expecting? So how many languages you speak anyway, Harold?

"Yeah, you know, those automatic translation programs are pretty cool. But when I tried a Spanish one on my own poetry they just turned it into a pile of unreadable shit. And don't say that's what it sounds like in English!"

Daro laughed merrily. Reese could hear the gurgle as she emptied another bottle over the unending supply of ice in her glass.

He walked out into the living room. She was huddled on the sofa, knees to her chest, denim shirt buttoned to the throat, the golden braids now loose over his suit jacket on her shoulders.

He stood in front of her, palm up for the phone.

She shook her head and waved him off.

"Yeah, I did bring home a bunch of stuff from China. Mostly gifts from students and a few souvenirs I bought too. Shit my boys would get a kick out of mostly.

"Art work? Well, I wouldn't call it art, really. Just some copies of long-ass old scrolls. You know the kind that have characters penned in ink next to a pretty scene in watercolors. Some mountains or a lake with trees on the shore, that kind of shit."

Reese glared down at her and stepped closer.

The chilly Britannic secretary reemerged.

"Oh, what luck, Mr. Harold! It seems that Mr. Reese is now available to speak with you. Please hold on and I will transfer you to his office. And Harold, do have a lovely day."

Daro handed over the phone. She slipped over to the kitchen where she listened to the men's conversation while leaning on the countertop sipping from her drink.

After he ended the call, Reese explained the situation to her as best he could.

Throughout the night Harold had monitored a barrage of frantic exchanges in several chat rooms frequented by U.S.-based Chinese dissidents. These young people believed that the transfer into their hands of an example of Song dynasty art work was imminent. They had already secured a wealthy American collector who was prepared to clandestinely purchase the rare scrolls for an extraordinary sum. With this significant infusion of cash, the dissidents hoped to fund their efforts in the United States and inside China as well. They were desperately counting on the money from this black market sale. But they were also fearful of interference, perhaps violent, from the Chinese government or its agents.

"So those thugs who attacked us last night weren't just pissed off about my smutty poems, hunh?"

Daro was not at all drunk, but to Reese she seemed unnaturally cheerful for six in the morning.

"No."

"Well, they blew it. Because I don't have any scrolls from any Song dynasty. I told your little friend. All I have are bad copies of old paintings, nothing valuable."

"Describe the pieces you were given by the students in Hangzhou."

Daro told him about the two scrolls, two feet in length, each with a poem by the Song Dynasty master, Su Dong-Po. The characters, outlined in bold strokes of black ink, were accompanied by two different images of the same placid body of water, West Lake. The trees framing the lake views were lushly green and in one scene a distant pagoda spiked the sky.

"Where are these scrolls now?"

The antic flush high on her cheeks drained away as she recorded the urgency in Reese's voice.

"I gave them to my kids. One is hanging on the wall above Bobby's desk. Wyatt tacked the other one to the door to his room.

"You think these are the real deal?"

"Yes. And so do the men who are out to stop this exchange from happening. We have to make sure it does happen. If we can get the scrolls into the hands of the dissidents, you will be out of danger. As long as they are in your possession, you will be a target."

Reese called his partner again with the confirmation they had needed.

As the two men outlined a plan of action, Reese watched Daro flee to the bathroom.

He heard her retch three times in rapid succession. The toilet flush was followed by the sounds of water splashing.

When she came back to the living room, her face was still dripping. Her eyes were rimmed in red, but her jaw was set.

"What do you want me to do? I can go to my house and get those damn scrolls and bring them wherever they say. Whatever they want. Just so they leave us alone."

"No. You don't leave here until the danger is over. Is your family still at home or have they left?"

"Wyatt and Bobby don't leave for another half hour. Barbara should be gone already. She always opens up the store early on Thursdays."

He tossed her the phone.

"Call your sons. Tell them to take the scrolls off the wall. Then roll them up as tight as they can. You've got some rolls of paper towels in the kitchen? Alright, have them put the scrolls inside the cardboard roll, wrap it in a plastic grocery bag, and leave it on the front step. Then they should go to school just like always."

She did exactly as he instructed.

Reese argued briefly with Harold over who should pick up the scrolls from Daro's front porch.

But Harold was right.

By now, any operatives hired by the Chinese government to stop the planned transfer of the Song Dynasty scrolls would have the description of the man who had thwarted the kidnap attempt at the poetry reading.

If they were watching Daro's house, they would spot Reese easily if he approached.

No one knew what Harold looked like. And no one would notice him. Especially if he wore the Pullman brown uniform of a package delivery service driver.

Harold sat on a wooden bench in Prospect Park for an hour in the frigid morning stillness waiting for a contact from the dissidents.

As part of his disguise, he didn't wear his eyeglasses, so when he spoke with Reese over the phone later he could give only a vague description of the young woman who finally approached him.

She was taller than he, slightly chubby, and delighted to find him at last. She shook his hand vigorously before taking the yellow plastic bag containing the roll of paper towels which she hid in a woven burlap satchel. After saying thank you in excellent English, the young woman disappeared around a bend in the path.

Daro wanted to return home immediately after Reese confirmed that the transfer was completed.

"You can't do that, Daro. We know the dissidents have the scrolls, but the government doesn't. You are still in danger."

He thought she was going to hit him in her frustration and fury.

So to avoid violence and settle both their stomachs, Reese made a quick run to a sandwich shop three blocks away. He bought enough provisions to tide them over until evening.

He assumed the break from his oppressive company was beneficial for Daro. He knew the chance to stretch his legs and clear his head was therapeutic for him.

_When she took the empty plastic cup from him, she held it between two fingertips._

_The fall of black hair swung across her face._

_He thought there might be one more drop of ice water in that cup and he wanted it._

_She pulled out an evidence bag from a file cabinet. With great care she stowed away his fingerprints, his identity, his future._

_She raised an eyebrow as if to say, I've got you now. _

_And then she left him alone in the interrogation room._

In addition to the subs, he also brought back a pint of vodka, a carton of orange juice, and a little jar of instant espresso.

Through the afternoon and early evening Daro bugged him to call Harold to get information about the sale of the Song scrolls.

Though he was as impatient as she was, he refrained from contacting his friend. Harassment would not speed the results they hoped for; it would only make an anxious situation more unbearable for all parties.

At seven thirty, Reese heard footsteps on the sidewalk above the apartment. He sent Daro to the back bedroom and drew his gun as he approached the door.

The knock was firmly polite, but it was possible the Chinese had sent a nicer team of assassins this time.

Drawing the latch back slowly, he opened the door a crack and then flung it wide.

Joss had come for them. For him.

He was still holding her in his arms when Daro crept into the living room. He didn't care.

Joss whispered into his shirt that the dissidents had sold their scroll to the art collector. The danger was over. They could come home.

Reese sat in back while Joss drove Daro to Brooklyn.

As he shifted to the front seat, he caught a glimpse of a slight woman with a corona of black curls embracing Daro as she entered their home. Two tall skinny boys stood on either side of their mothers.

He took Joss's hand and kept a tight hold all the way home. Even when she needed to make a tricky turn, he wouldn't let go.


End file.
